Unexpected success!

[ladyjanelly]

So last year when I was all pregnant and stuff, I started a gardening project.

I wanted to expand the 24"wide flowerbeds in front out by another yard and edge it with white blocks so we could replace lawn that we watered for either heat/dry resistant plants or edibles that we would water but get something out of.

I knew from experience that pulling up St. Augustine grass sod is a nightmare. It took hours and hours to pull up just a few square feet.

So I had the bright idea that I'd have the lawn guy cut it short, and then Kendra and Sam and I laid out the blocks and covered the short grass with layers of cardboard and then about 2" of cheap soft-wood mulch.

I went to work it in today, and I was expecting to scrape back the mulch, pull out the cardboard and then remove dead grass.

Imagine my surprise when I broke through the mulch and there was about 2" of completely decomposed cardboard and grass. Nothing to pull out. Just had to shovel it around and try to work it into the clay-heavy Texas dirt.

I almost want to start buying blocks and mulch and planning next year's sod-to-bed expansion (The goal is to have very little "lawn" left at the end).

I need suggestions though: are there any more-green ways to do this? I know the softwood mulch isn't the most ecological solution to the issue.

What would be the greenest way to improve the soil so it's less heavy and clumpy? I have a lot of compost, but when I mix it into the soil, even in a 50/50 mix to fill flowerpots or whatever, when it gets hot and dry it turns to a solid, unbreakable mass. Mass quantities of vermiculite?

Comments

[faunna.livejournal.com]

Ditto on the sand, sand, sand comment.

For turning lawn into bedding soil I like to break up the area with my special pitch fork and a twisty thing with tines. I think they can work around 'Augastine in ways you might like. Anyway, mix in grass-clippings, compost/manure, and sand. The gooier the more sand you need. Water it, mulch it with more grass-clippings and then a layer of wood mulch. Just use a mulch that will rot into a good soil amendment. I like an oaky mulching as opposed to pine bark for this task and not cypress at all. Something that will rot down quickly if you sprinkle a layer of grass clipping across it with regularity. Guess I never thought about the source, but it sure does look like bark scraps other diced up leftovers from industry that I'm happy are going back to the earth.

Let that lay fallow and all rot together. Sometimes, if the soil is particularly abused, it takes a second dose of amendments after the first turning. Think of the first processing as a primer coat :) About my third year here I got the eye and the knack and could prep a patch and tell it was done by the roots of any weeds that survived the mulching.